Leaving home in the dark, I arrive to a patchwork sky of blues and greys, a stiff breeze and a trio of freight tankers looming on a moody sea beyond Durlston’s cliffs.
As I head out on patrol, a tiny Wren flits across the path ahead of me, while a Chaffinch calls in a strident tone from the undergrowth.
Ducking into the Learning Centre bird hide, a Goldfinch and Blue Tit amicably share seed from a feeder.
Sadly, the malformed and swollen ‘tassel foot’ of a male Chaffinch atop the feeder tells me that the bird has probably been infected with papillomatosis, driving home the importance of regularly cleaned feeders.
One seed bin inside the hide lies prostrate, making me wonder if Durlston’s resident Badgers have once again come raiding.
Passing into Field 34, a delineated line on the Blackthorn hedge shows where the recent winds have stripped the top leafage, the lower section still sheltered and verdant for now.
As I head through South Field into the North-Westerly headwind, a Grey Squirrel scrambles along the laid hedge along the Northern boundary, the horizontal trunks of Hawthorn pleached last winter now flush with a summer’s regrowth.
Turning South into Saxon Field, the creamy caps of Field Mushrooms slowly blacken off, fringes browning and fraying as they disintegrate back into the soil, sporing complete.
Leaving Saxon, I turn West and follow the lip of the Gully, knowing that this meltwater-cut cleft is a popular refuge for wildlife when the winds rise. A squadron of Feral Pigeon make a disconcertingly low pass over my head, wing-claps making me start, while their larger Wood Pigeon cousins bank and wheel below, glutting on the wealth of Haw berries and Dog Rose hips.
Sheltering from the wind atop the wooden bridge at the head of Gully below an Ivy-wreathed Hawthorn, I stop and listen, hearing the ‘chip-chip’ of territorial Robins and machine-gun rattle of Wrens. Heading back towards the Learning Centre, the chirps of a solitary Chiffchaff and echoey tjeeeeh of a Brambling rise from the tangle of the Gully.
As I draw parallel with the Lighthouse, a solitary ‘slot’ in the mud of the Herston Trail tells me a Roe Deer passed in the same direction some time before.
The morning sun then finally breaks through the cloud cover, teasing a brighter day ahead.